Aeduan Quotes

Sometimes justice was all about the small victories.

Mhe varujta. Trust me as if my soul were yours.

From the day she had stabbed Aeduan in the heart, that heart had become hers—and she would not let this be his end.

It is always easier to blame gods or legends than it is to face our own mistakes.

I trust you as if my soul were yours.

Aeduan bundled her up and stood. She was so light, so fragile. A bird in his demon arms.

Oh, the Bloodwitch named Aeduan was no longer bored. No longer bored at all. And now he had work to do.

She stole his breath now, and he had no breath to spare.

She trusted him. She had claimed his Aether, and she would guide his blade.

He was a Bloodwitch no longer. He was a monk no longer. He was man, just a man. It would have to be enough.

Aeduan didn’t contradict her. She was what she was, and fighting one’s nature only brought pain. Sometimes death too.

Aeduan.” She’d never said his name aloud. She was surprised by how easily it rolled off the tongue. He looked back, his expression inscrutable as always. But laced with … with something. Hope, she found herself thinking, though she knew it was fanciful. Aeduan was not the sort of man to ever hope.

Her eyelids fluttered open. Aeduan was still observing the fireflies. “Did you make a wish?” she asked, and to her surprise, he nodded. A curt bounce of his head. “What did you wish for?” He flexed his hands. Then shrugged. “If it comes true, then maybe one day I will tell you.

Fireflies.” “What?” Iseult splashed upright. Chill bumps raced down her arms. “There.” Aeduan waved across the pond. “Fireflies. They’re good luck in Marstok, I’ve heard. And children make wishes on them.” There was something light to Aeduan’s voice, as if he … “Are you making a joke?” Iseult pushed to her feet. Water droplets splattered across the stone. “No.” Iseult didn’t believe him.

His thumb moved, back up her palm toward her wrist. His skin was rough. His touch was not.

This girl had fought Aeduan—tricked him and broken his spine. She had battled city guards and faced cleaved Poisonwitches head-on, yet never had Aeduan seen her show fear.

He was caught, like the man from the tale who wanted to feed his family during a blizzard, but could not bear to kill the lamb. In the end, everyone died of starvation, including the lamb. For Lady Fate makes all men choose eventually. Even Bloodwitches.

But one need not be evil to become it

This young man had stalked Iseult through Veñaza City. Had smiled cruelly at her, his crystal eyes swirling red. Then he had saved her too, in Lejna. With a salamander cloak and a single phrase: Mhe varujta. Trust me as if my soul were yours.

But there was no reason. There never had been. He was just a child, trapped in the wreckage of war. He had not done this, he had not caused this. Yet he had lost his life to it all the same.

He was younger than Iseult had imagined. No older than twenty, if she had to guess. Yet he felt old, with his voice so gruff. His language so formal. It was in the way he carried himself too, as if he’d walked for a thousand years and planned to walk a thousand more.

This was not the Threadwitch who had cornered Aeduan beside a bear trap. Nor the Threadwitch who’d sparred with him that very morning. This was a woman changed. Aeduan knew because he’d been there before himself. Soon she would learn—just as he had—that there was no outrunning the demons of one’s own creation.

And they fell. Together.

No one asks for what life gives them

He wiped his face on his shoulder, then offered Iseult his hand. She clasped it tight, her fingers lacing between his. Together they ran.

When Aeduan had said he would kill her in Lejna, she hadn’t believed him. When he’d said he would kill her last night, she had.

Iseult’s nostrils twitched. Her face hardened. The defiance, the determination—they were back, and against his will, Aeduan’s lips twitched upward.

We will need to move fast. Are you up for that?” She snorted, and when Aeduan glanced back, he found her face had softened. The slightest—almost imperceptible—glint of mischief hovered there now. “I think we both know the answer to that, Bloodwitch.” She stalked past him, her chin high. Challenging. “The question will be if you can keep up.” Then she broke into a run, Aeduan broke into a run after her.

Iseult hated herself for that truth, but there it was. She wanted to go after Safi; she wanted Aeduan to lead the way; she wished this child would simply disappear. Monster, she told herself. You’re a monster.

Then the earth boomed beneath her. It crunched and rocked, lifting her like a mother carries a child. All the way out of the water. All the way back to shore. Then the stones dropped Iseult into Aeduan’s arms.

Someone owed Aeduan a life-debt. It was … A first. A first that he didn’t know how to swallow. The Threadwitch Iseult was alive because he had made it so. She could breathe her current breaths and could taste the river’s water because he had saved her life. Though she had also, in a way, saved his. First, she had not killed him while he lay unconscious in the bear trap. And second, she had been the one to hook them to that stone before the Falls. But Aeduan decided not to mention any of this, for if the Threadwitch believed she owed him three lives, then that gave him an advantage. That, he could use. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know when, only that he absolutely would.

Because it is always easier to blame gods or legends than it is to face our own mistakes. This land is no more cursed than any other. It is simply steeped in too much blood.

Simply because I have lost faith in the cause doesn't mean the training has lost all of its usefulness.

Run, my child, run.

It was then—at that moment—that it hit Aeduan square in the chest. Iseult was here. Not hunting after the Truthwitch but here, standing tall in a land of smoking embers. Before he could speak, before he could ask her how she knew of the Red Sails, an inhuman shriek filled the air. Louder than the receding rain, louder than the cannons’ roar. It was the mountain bat, returned and plunging right for them. Aeduan barely yanked Iseult sideways before its talons crashed into the stones.

As Aeduan stalked through the oaks of the Contested Lands, his pocket felt light without the arrowhead. He hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d grown to its weight. To its iron presence. But now it was gone, and that was that. No dwelling on it. Simply moving forward.

No stopping, though. Only running onward through the weak rain. Men charged with blades, but swords were so easy for Iseult to evade with Aeduan at her side. Together, they arced, they lunged, they ducked, they rolled. A fluid combination of steps built on blood and Threads.

The air, the sky, the water—it was so much like their encounter two nights ago. Yet also nothing like it at all. Iseult and the Bloodwitch had been enemies then, bound only by coins. Tonight, they were allies bound by … Well, Iseult didn’t know precisely.

Who betrays whom first.

As Aeduan walked onward, he was pleased to find he’d left a trail of muddy boot-prints throughout the house.

There was pain too, though Aeduan could ignore that. After all, pain was nothing new.

Always. There was always blood where Aeduan went.

Which left Aeduan, as always, on the edge of a scene, watching while the world unfolded without him beneath a darkening sky.

So this is how I will die. Aeduan had never thought it would be flames. A beheading, perhaps. Old age, more likely. But not fire—not since he’d escaped that death all those years ago.

Why so much fighting? Is the land valuable?” “There is nothing of value here. Yet men have always believed that they know better than those who came before. That they will be the ones to claim the Contested Lands.

Unbidden, a memory stirred in the back of Aeduan’s mind. Another child, another basket, another lifetime, and a monk named Evrane, who had saved him from it all. Evrane’s mistake. She should have left Aeduan behind.

The world shivered and smeared before him. Still, his training took over. With his free hand, he checked that his baldric was still in place. The knives ready for the grabbing. Then he readied his stance, for though blood might burn, Aeduan’s soul would not.

Forever after today, she would flex and furl her fingers, precisely as she did right now. She would roll her wrists and crack her neck. She would stretch her jaw and wonder who might next die at her hands. Who might not get away. And forever after tonight, she would be hungry to outrun the nightmares. She would race and she would fight and she would kill again, just to make sure the ghosts were real. They were.

A figure in white coalesced behind the Firewitch. She walked stiffly, her hands extended and her eyes rolled back in her head. The salamander cloak’s fire-flap covered half her face. Ash coated her brow. Aeduan didn’t know how the Threadwitch was here. He didn’t know why either. He only knew he couldn’t look away. The Threadwitch walked, each step evenly spaced, to the Firewitch. He was a monster fully cleaved now, yet when he wriggled and snarled at Iseult, she showed no fear. No reaction at all. Instead, she lowered the fire-flap on the salamander cloak, then with her mouth stretched wide … she snapped her teeth at the air. The Firewitch collapsed. Dead.

The coat was almost to him. He stretched. He reached … He was too far. His hand gripped only icy water. So without another thought, he thrust off the bank and dove into the waves.

Iseult knew what she had to do. She knew what Safi would do in this position. What Habim or Mathew or her mother or anyone with a backbone would do. So why was she finding it so hard to summon any words?

It was as Aeduan stared into her bloodshot eyes that a cannon boomed in the distance. South. Where the Threadwitch must now be. Without thought, Aeduan drew in a long, deep breath. His power stretched wide; his witchery latched on to the scent of his own silver taler, still dangling from her neck. Yes, she was south. Hurry, he thought, for clearly violence was breaking loose. It always did in the Contested Lands.

He twisted back to the slaver, who was clearly at a loss for who posed more of a threat: Aeduan or the mountain bat. To Aeduan, the answer was obvious. “You should run now,” he warned the man. “Or I will kill you.” The man’s lips curled back. “Seven of us and only one of you.” He grabbed Aeduan’s shirt. “Exactly,” Aeduan said. “Which is why you should be running.” Then, with a speed that no man could match, he clutched the man’s hand to his chest, and punched up. His fist connected just above the elbow, breaking the joint and snapping the humerus in two. Bone tore through flesh; the man screamed. This was only the beginning. With the man’s arm angled in a way it was never meant to be, Aeduan thrust the limp elbow toward the man’s neck. The jagged tip of bone that had erupted outward now pierced soft throat. The man’s beard was instantly red, and with a soft flick of his wrists, Aeduan pushed the body over. After that, everything was a blur of shaking earth and screams and blood. Of terror that expanded in men’s pupils when they realized that they were going to die.

You’ve been there all along, Bloodwitch. Somewhere, l-lurking. You are the reason I had to go to my tribe—which means you are the reason Corlant c-c-could attack. So if I had never met you, then would I even be here right now?” “If I had never met you,” he countered coolly, “then my spine would never have snapped, and Leopold fon Cartorra would never have hired me. Monk Evrane would not have almost died.

Don't pet the cat that's had a bath.

If we have learned anything, we have learned this: it is not the strongest of the races that survives, or the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change. Thus only the Aeduan race will survive the